Wanda Louella Addington Cates, a San Antonio educator who died Monday at age 88, earned celebrity in 1999 when Ripley's Believe It or Not included her and her husband's Valentine's Day tradition in its nationally syndicated newspaper feature.

It told the story of a beautiful, well-traveled, now slightly frayed Valentine's Day card bought at Sears & Roebuck before World War II.

A young Cates gave it to Karl, her late husband, long before they were married.

“Let's exchange this same Valentine until one of us gets married,” she wrote — and hoped.

She had liked him since she was 6 and living in Devol, Okla., where they grew up. He was already 15. “She had a crush on him her whole entire life,” daughter Dana Berlin said.

The card made it all over the world, including India, where her husband was stationed during the war.

After marrying, they kept up the tradition. Every year, one or the other would send it back with another line testifying their love.

Sometimes, no stamp was necessary. A U.S. Postal Service worker, her husband would deliver it in person. They were married for 52 years.

In 1998, the card was delivered for the last time. Cates told the story to a funeral director, who sent it to Ripley's.

Professing their love was a habit. Her husband wrote 93 love letters to her from 1943 to 1945.

“She gave them to me for safekeeping,” Berlin said. “There's a lot of history in those two years about their courtship, engagement and marriage.”

A graduate of Baylor and Trinity universities, Cates enjoyed 33 years of teaching drama, theater and speech. She worked as a counselor, too.

“She was a beautiful lady who loved teaching and loved children,” said daughter Pam White, calling her a natural caregiver.

Daughter-in-law Bernadine Carter has similar memories. “She always treated me like one of her own. I guess what I take most from her is learning how to be a grandmother.”

Cates taught in numerous schools, including Edison, Burbank, Jefferson, Highland, MacArthur and Roosevelt high schools, her family said.

Over the years, she served in varied posts, including dean of girls and head of an English department.